For as long as I could remember, Allan always had a permanent place in my life; constantly lurking about in the background and swooping in at certain moments to save the day of three small grandchildren who looked up to him. I had always known him to be a quiet sort of person, only speaking when he thought it necessary, but oddly enough you would always know he was around by the way he would purposefully stomp his booted feet around the house whilst humming the same five notes to himself. This would inevitably lead to my Nana, Sherry, to heckle Allan for wearing his dirty work boots in the house.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡXBhgPxUEhS

My Nana would bicker with Allan quite often, so much so that my family jokingly says "It's always Allan's fault!" It was the typical bickering you hear between elderly couples who have been together for many years. I cannot recall a time when I visited them that I didn’t hear Nana and Allan bickering. Allan didn’t seem to mind, in fact, he was the one who instigated it by irritating Nana in some way. He found amusement out of goading a reaction out her much like a spoilt child who misbehaves in order to get attention.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡNBegYfj0yq

As a small child, I never questioned Allan’s presence within the family or why everyone referred to him as "Allan" instead of "your grandfather." It wasn't until I was much older did I learn that Allan wasn't blood to me or my siblings in any way. But when it comes to family, blood matters very little. Problems within the family and distance prevented me from seeing my biological grandfathers often and as a result Allan made a constant appearance in my life, loving and cherishing my siblings and I as if we were truly his own grandchildren.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡ0igH0JIBSl

Another lesson I soon learned was that Allan had a fascinating life story to tell. It wasn't a tale he told often, as he wasn't one to speak of personal matters too often but the rare occasions when he did open up and tell me aspects of his life, I listened intently and did everything I could to remember every detail. Allan's life story, like everyone else's, began at his birth when he was born on December 25th in the year of our Lord 1945. He was the youngest of seven children and was what we shall politely call "a pleasant surprise." His family lived on a farm outside of St. John, New Brunswick until he was 15 and they moved. Allan was a misfit child, racing motorcycles, getting in trouble often with his peers and eventually dropping out of high school in Grade 11 to take up a career as a truck driver. Understandably, his parents weren't too fond of this decision.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡDPWU6Ms0qK

One fine episode of Allan's antics, involved a fountain and an entire carton of Mr. Bubble Bubble Bath. In the town square of St. John stood a tall fountain that was situated in the centre of the square and was uphill of the shops it was surrounded by. With no witnesses around, Allan went straight to the fountain, dumped the entire carton of Mr. Bubble into it and fled the scene. The fountain ended up frothing and overflowing so that the water ran downhill and into the shops where his sister happened to be shopping at the time. Luckily for him, he didn't get caught.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡSel6ujmOkU

Allan eventually did get married and had three children. One of his sons became ill and so the family moved to British Columbia to get his son the treatment he needed and Allan took a job in the lumber trade. It was at this chapter in his life that Allan divorced his wife and gained custody of their children. With three hungry mouths to feed, Allan took a job in construction, leaving the lumber trade behind, but found it still wasn’t enough to keep his children fed. So he turned to hunting, which was something that ended up getting Allan in trouble with the law since he shot a few deer without a hunting license. He spent a few days in jail and had only some of the meat confiscated; he got off the hook so easily since the sheriff knew him and of his dire situation. Allan told me about this incident as we sat in the basement of Nana and Allan’s old home while the afternoon sun filtered through the curtains of the windows. Everyone else had gone upstairs and I remained with Allan as he smoked a cigarette and spoke in such a low, mumbling voice that I had to strain my ears in order to catch everything he was saying.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡelcv2ceKO6

This was a moment where I realized that there was more to Allan then what one saw of him. This was philosophy I would later apply to all people I knew and would eventually meet. Behind the grey eyes, snow-white hair, wrinkled face, sagging eye and tall lanky form held an individual who had met with adversity and made it out of the fire. If anything, I realized that the person that lurked around in the backdrop of my life was a complex individual and it was then that I learned that everyone has a story to tell.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡ6rW3m3PO3f

I found this revelation to be terribly fascinating.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡyWtU3YdpMx

Armed with the newfound revelation that Allan’s storytelling brought me, I endeavoured to learn more about the lives of the adults in my life; the good, the bad, and the more horrific aspects of their life stories, all intermingling with one another. Now my own life story is intertwined with theirs. Funny how unaware I was of the stories I was surrounded by; tales that had lessons and both funny and heart-wrenching anecdotes to offer to anyone who would listen.copyright protection184ＰＥＮＡＮＡj1SwwVJLGx